


I Have Many Skills

by Sabooian



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Chronic Illness, Chronic Pain, F/F, Gen, Hand Tremors, Kara is Still Cat's Assistant, Leadership, Light Drinking, Multi, Over Working, Relaxing, Season 1 Supergirl, Self Care, clumsy, dealing with stress, fibromyalgia, invisible illness, learning self respect, no superpowers, shaking hands, standing up for herself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-09-25
Packaged: 2019-03-04 15:02:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,626
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13367196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sabooian/pseuds/Sabooian
Summary: I have never read any fanfictions about having fibromyalgia and I find Kara Danvers super relatable so I decided to combine the two! This is just a short potentially multi-chapter about being Cat Grant's assistant while trying to hide having an invisible illness instead of hiding superpowers.





	1. Kara's Hidden Talents

Kara was your average assistant at first glance. Cardigans to keep warm in the air conditioned building year-round, slightly average overall looks, from the glasses to the height and blonde hair. But what people couldn’t see was what she tried every single day to hide. Kara has fibromyalgia and she doesn’t want to let it stop her from living her life, but it requires her to make some modifications here and there in order to appear as if she is not disabled by a chronic pain condition.

For those who don’t have fibromyalgia, it might appear as if Kara is completely healthy these days. She is 24, fairly well adjusted, and working for Cat Grant, Queen of all media. She balances a high-stress job with game nights among friends and time spent with her sister Alex, as well as other random volunteer work she does on her days off. However she has certain tells for her disorder if you look closer.

One example of this is that she is so used to having pain in her hands that she can withstand holding onto Cat’s ridiculously extra hot latte every morning as if it were nothing! The first time that she came up to give Cat her latte and it was too cold, she resorted to asking the barista to make the extra hot drink at 200 degrees instead of the normal 170. 

Now a normal person would require a sleeve to hold such a drink. Cat however is a strong believer that cup sleeves are a tacky waste of paper that is an unacceptable use of environmental resources. It is this reason why Kara is the first assistant to not only successfully maintain her latte at an acceptable temperature, but hand it over as if it weren’t burning her hand without an extra layer there for heat protection. Cat makes a mental note, possibly impressed.

Normally latte runs are no issue for Kara, however on bad flare days her grip can be hard to control at times. She has had to resort to keeping a spare set of clothing in her desk drawer in order to make up for squeezing the cup too hard on days that she can’t judge her grip strength. Luckily nobody has said anything to the janitors who keep having to clean up the carpet after said spills, however she has learned to test her grip a few times before fully grabbing anything and normally avoids any disasters. One day she made it halfway up the elevator when her right hand decided it was going to twitch and throw the latte on the floor because Why Not??? It was after this incident that she started to request a carrying tray and decided that latte duty was a two hand kind of job. Incidents have been avoided numerous times with this method with the added bonus of making room for Kara to carry her own drink and a hot chocolate for Winn.

Sure enough, after a few months doing Ms. Grant’s coffee runs, Kara has it down to a tee! Her smiley demeanor means that everyone in the building tends to know her and like to ask how her day is going or will help her when it appears that she is overloaded carrying items. Her closest friends Winn and James are around all the time to help her with Ms. Grant’s strange requests day to day whether it be obtaining a signature from someone James has better connections to or an IT problem like the time that Kara was texting and dropped her phone only to step on it and crack the screen. Knowing it was probably best not to ask how this happened, Winn had her a backup phone within the hour and it was like nothing happened to the old one!

Grip control and heat resistance aren’t her only symptoms to handle. The best way she could describe her flares is if someone were to take a hot poker used to stoke a fire, and attach electrodes to it and stab that up along the nerves of her arms and legs the long way. This could last anywhere from 5 seconds to all day depending on the day and had no warning signals. After a flare, she was drained of energy but caffeine gave her a migraine so she just had to make it work. Occasionally, one hand would work better than the other so she picked up the fantastic ability to write with both hands! 

The way Kara saw it, she had a superpower. The power to know her limits and push forward when possible with simple modifications, appreciating each thing her body let her do at least ten times more than the average person! Every day that her body cooperates is another day she can make a change in the world in some small way. Afterall, a few years ago she couldn’t even walk, let alone maintain a job. She was her own hero by getting back up, making it through rigorous physical therapy and testing, and making her way in the world again like nothing had stopped her in the first place.

Granted, Alex wasn’t always thrilled to hear that Kara was working for the Queen of all media, what with the whole fibromyalgia being a stress disorder and being Ms. Grant’s assistant being well known as the impossible job! But being a part of CatCo, working alongside such a powerful and inspiring woman was where Kara was happiest. She knew that every day that she helped Ms. Grant achieve what was on her schedule, she was helping to raise millions of dollars for important causes, and spreading information to massive numbers of people who would otherwise not have access to the news. 

Her disorder wasn’t the only thing she was hiding though. Speaking multiple languages was another useful tool she kept under her belt for the times when Ms. Grant wanted to contact international offices and check in on their progress. Instead of having to call in a translator to assist with the work, Kara just called up the offices in South America and would chat away with Angelina about the newest projects, asking what they needed help with and where Ms. Grant should be concerned. Ms. Grant would always be shocked with how informed she seemed about the goings on abroad until she found out that Kara was speaking directly with the head of each department instead of having a middle man help out.

She spoke Spanish, English, Russian, Gaelic, and was learning about 3 other languages which were less common when it came to the media empire on the side. Originally she had only put two languages on her resume, however on one of her brain fog days she had accidentally responded to Ms. Grant in Gaelic instead of English and from then on Ms. Grant had tasked her with contacting the offices in Ireland and Scotland as well, seeing as their accents were often heavy and clearly Kara had a grasp of the local dialects.

___________________________________________________________________________

It was a normal day as Ms. Grant’s assistant and Kara was half way through jotting down notes on a Ted talk that Ms. Grant asked her to watch and bring her the important highlights of, before a meeting, when Kara could no longer hold her pen in her right hand. She muttered irritatedly under her breath briefly while massaging the cramp out of her hand and decides to just give in and swap hands to her left, taking slightly longer to write, and having slightly shakier handwriting, but still acceptable enough to look like an adult wrote it.

After making it through the video and checking over her notes to see that they are properly concise and yet established all of the main points of the talk at hand, Kara approached her boss’s doorway and waited to be given permission to enter the room. 

“Yes, Keira.” Ms. Grant said, while still looking down at the article she was re-editing after one of the idiots in the social events department had decided that spell check was no longer necessary.

Kara hastily approached the desk and placed her notes neatly on the edge so as not to disturb what Ms. Grant was working on. 

“Here are those notes on the Ted talk that you requested.”

Ms. Grant looked up, and took the notes to scan over them for a moment. 

“Who wrote the second half? Am I paying you to delegate your tasks to some side monkey or to do the job yourself?” she snapped.

“I..I wrote the whole thing!” Kara declared.

“There are two distinctly different handwritings on this page and you what? Think I’m an imbecile and won’t notice that you only wrote half?” her glare intensified in Kara’s direction.

“M..my hand was cramping from writing a lot this morning so...so I used my other one. I didn’t want to delay the work a.. and my left handwriting isn’t quite identical to my right handwriting yet. I’m sorry Ms. Grant.” She looked down sheepishly hoping this wouldn’t be the end of her job. Sure, her handwriting wasn’t as good as her elegant script normally is, but it was legible enough, she thought.

“Prove it.”

“I. What?”

“Don’t just stand there stupidly! I said prove it!” Ms. Grant shoved the paper and a pen towards Kara and looked at her expectantly.

“Oh!” Kara quickly rushed to take the materials. “What would you like me to write?”

“I don’t care! Just write something!”

Kara thought for a quick moment and decided to write down one of the lyrics to a song she had stuck in her head.

‘I’ve got memories, and travel like Gypsies in the night.’ with her right hand. 

“This is my normal handwriting…” 

“Yes! Yes! Get on with it!”

She took a deep breath and swapped hands, writing down the same line, ‘I’ve got memories, and travel like Gypsies in the night.’ only this time it is less slanted and slightly shakier. She stepped back and handed the page to Ms. Grant, hoping to not lose her job over this.

A simple, “Fine.” Is all she gets in return.

Cat waves her hand in dismissal and Kara takes her chance to escape quickly, hearing Cat yell to keep working as she is leaving the room. 

Kara takes a deep breath as she sits back at her desk, massaging her hand briefly again trying to get it to stop cramping up and gets back to her email list that needs to be dealt with by four o’clock that afternoon.


	2. Agree to Disagree

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex stops by to check on her sister after not seeing her for a few days and ends up having an unexpected sisters' day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As before, any mistakes are my own as I don't have a beta!   
> All characters are not mine, just simply borrowed to tell a story that I hope others can relate to :)

Kara had been working super hard for months on end as Ms. Grant’s assistant and now she was getting into the flow of doing her job well enough that Ms. Grant barely had to yell at her everyday beyond her usual snarking.

Of course it wasn’t always perfect, but she knew when to get Ms. Grant a salad with a cheeseburger on top, and which days to pull out her Lexapro based on who would be coming in for meetings that afternoon. She knew to schedule a therapy session for immediately after Cat’s mother popped in for a “simple visit” with her daughter, only to tear Cat to shreds in front of her employees. Kara would always glare at anyone who dared judge Ms. Grant based on her mother’s words and actions, and close the door to avoid anyone overhearing what was none of their business.

Things were starting to flow steadily and she had managed to hide her hands not working like normal certain days and the literal pain in her neck that would develop after sitting in one position for too long. 

Winn found out about her condition and told her he knew about a secret office that was abandoned except for some random filing cabinets which he had been using to store some of his gear that he hated to lug back and forth between work and home. 

Kara decided this was the perfect place to store a foam roller and some other equipment that she could use to do some basic physical therapy on the rare moments she got to sneak away from her desk or on her restroom breaks. A few moments on the foam roller and her neck was as good as new! It turns out there was something to the months of physical therapy four years ago, beyond regaining her general range of motion.

It had been a super busy last couple of months, where she had to keep cancelling on sisters’ night with Alex because Cat was staying late at the office and therefore Kara had to stay too. Multiple charity galas had ended up back to back this month and Kara had had to handle everything for Ms. Grant to make a proper appearance and to ensure that Catco got proper coverage of each event. She even managed to earn Ms. Grant asking her opinion on a couple of layouts, not necessarily taking all of her suggestions, but advising her on what was good or bad when trying to draw attention to specific bylines and images. 

All of this had led to Kara being reasonably exhausted this Friday morning, but she was gathering her strength to get dressed and ready for work when she heard a knock on her door followed by the sound of a key scraping the lock. 

The door opened revealing Alex holding a box of donuts from Kara’s favorite bakery around the corner! Kara jumped up excitedly to greet her sister, grabbing the donuts and placing them on the kitchen counter before spinning around and enveloping Alex in a warm hug. Alex returned the hug only to notice Kara wincing and then trying to cover it.

“Are you overdoing it again?”

“Pshhh… What? No I am fine!” Kara adjusted her glasses nervously.

“Crinkle!” Alex exclaimed, while poking Kara on the forehead. “I know that’s not the whole truth! Out with it!”

“Alex it’s just been a long week with two galas to prepare for and I’m tired! That’s all I swear!” 

“Okay… If you say so.” Alex didn’t truly look convinced and squinted skeptically at her sister but decided to drop it for now.

“No offense but why are you here so early?”

“I haven’t seen you in a while so I figured I’d catch you before work and chat a bit.”

“Well I have to leave soon to be sure that everything is set up for Ms. Grant but I’m glad that you are here. Help yourself to some coffee, I have the non decaf kind in the cabinet if you want it.”

Alex walked into the kitchen and made herself at home, swiping a donut as she walked past the box.

“I’m just gonna go finish doing my makeup really quickly and I’ll be right out.” Kara went to her bathroom and started trying to apply her foundation when all of the sudden her hand started cramping up like crazy. Determined to continue getting ready she starts applying her makeup with her other hand only to have a shock of electricity shoot through her neck, into both arms causing her to gasp loudly and tear up. 

“There goes my mascara…” she grumbled and went to remove her eye makeup and try again only for her whole body to start shaking from the pain. 

“Everything ok in there?” Alex yelled from the kitchen, wondering why Kara was taking longer than usual.

When Kara didn’t respond Alex ran to the other room and found Kara curled up in a ball with silent tears falling down her face one by one, trying desperately to keep her breathing steady and make the pain stop.

“The fibro again? Kara I told you this job was too much for you! You need to take better care of yourself and stop dropping everything to serve that Cat Grant! This would never have happened if you took that job I wanted you to take back in Midvale!” 

Kara looked pleadingly at Alex trying to convey that it wasn’t the time to be giving lectures and tried to stand up. Alex shut up and went to help her stand only for it to hurt Kara further because touching her arms hurt like she was being burned.

“That’s it! I’m calling in sick for you!”

“Alex No!” Kara managed to get out.

“You can’t be serious! You can’t even stand on your own right now. There is no way that you can go to work like this!”

“I don’t want to get fired! Alex, Ms. Grant needs me for the galas and I have so much to do!” 

“Kara you are no help to anyone like this. We are going to make you lie down and I will tell your boss you are sick with a 24 hour flu or something and she needs to call in a temp. You are not perfect and you are not going in to work today. Look at yourself!”

Kara tried again to reach for her makeup only to drop it and concede that she was being ridiculous trying to push any further today. She nodded for Alex to make the call.  
“Stay right here and I’ll get your phone to call in for you.” Alex helped Kara to sit down on the closed toilet seat and rushed out to find both of their phones. First she shot Jonn a text saying she needed to call in today to take care of her sister, and then she pulled up Kara’s contacts and dialed the Queen of Media’s number.

The phone rang only twice before a sharp “Yes Keira! What could you possibly be calling for?” blared out of the phone.

“Ms. Grant I am calling regarding my sister KARA Danvers,” she emphasized her sister’s real name.

“And why is she not calling to speak to me herself?”

“Kara has been up all night with a 24 hour flu and I just got her to fall asleep. She was refusing to call in but knows you despise being around sick people and is in no condition to be at work. I can call HR to send you a temporary replacement for the day seeing as she should be fine by Monday.”

“This is extremely inconvenient timing but I suppose it is the best action. Tell Keira to take care and get better quickly.” 

Alex swore she heard a slight softening to Cat’s tone but maybe she was just imagining it. 

“Thank you Ms. Grant. I will tell her.” a sharp click on the other end of the line indicated that Ms. Grant had disconnected the call. What was it with rich and important people hanging up before tying up a conversation?

Alex headed into the bathroom again to find Kara staring at the floor, trying to stop her limbs from randomly twitching.

“You’re off the hook, now strip!” At Kara’s questioning glance, Alex headed to the cabinet and pulled out some epsom salts and started drawing a hot (but not too hot so as to overstimulate her nerves) bath for her sister.

“Was she mad?”

“No she just said that while it was inconvenient timing you should get better. I told her you had a 24 hour flu and were asleep.”

“Thank you Alex.”

Alex just shrugged and stated “What are sisters for? Now get in. Is music too much noise for you right now?” 

Kara shook her head no and went to slowly walk over to the bathtub. Alex pulled up some classical music on her phone and turned off some of the lights as Kara had been squinting her eyes like she had a migraine forming. After assisting Kara into the tub comfortably, she said “Stay right there until I come get you. Call me if you need anything. I’m going to go do some quick things and I’ll be right back.”

“Please text Winn. He can help find someone to help Ms. Grant who won’t drive her insane.”

“Okay.” Alex said softly, tucking some hair behind Kara’s ear before walking back to the kitchen to finish making herself some coffee. She was going to need some caffeine to help support Kara today.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

It’s two o’clock in the afternoon and Kara is bundled up in blankets, sitting on her couch next to Alex. The blinds are all drawn to keep out the bright light and a movie is playing quietly across the room. Each woman is clutching a nice steaming mug of Tomato soup, and are eating in comfortable silence, enjoying each other’s company on this rare day off. 

Kara stopped twitching about an hour and a half ago and has regained the ability to focus properly now that she has taken a 3 hour nap and not done anything related to work. Alex spent the morning getting Winn to help find someone to help Ms. Grant so that Kara had nothing to worry about, and then borrowing Kara’s laptop to complete some of her paperwork that she needed to do for the DEO. While Jonn was able to give her the day off in the field, science and paperwork waits for nobody. 

She took a break from working when Kara woke up from her nap and suggested they watch D.E.B.S. because they both loved the movie and didn’t need the volume to be loud to understand everything that was going on. Who knew that a rom com about female spies could be so entertaining?

Scud was currently asking Lucy Diamond what her beef was with Australia and the sisters laughed at how similar it could be to when Kara had to talk Alex down or vice versa.

“Remember that time when I had to stop you from beating that guy up for asking me out like a week after he asked you out?” Kara asked.

“I would do it then and I would still do it now! He wasn’t anywhere near good enough for you!!!”

“Hahaha that’s what this scene reminds me of is talking you down! I never actually was gonna date him!” 

“Good! Have some standards! That guy was almost as much of a creep as Maxwell Lord! I mean who asks one sister and then flips to asking the other sister a week later?” The thought of Lord and the other guy whose name she can’t remember made Alex shiver in disgust.

“Thanks for always having my back Alex.” Alex shrugged and went to respond but Kara cut her off. “And don’t just brush it off like it’s nothing. You don’t have to do it but you always are there when I need someone even when I won’t admit it to myself. So thanks for being the best sister anyone could ask for.”

“You make it easy most of the time. I needed a day off anyways, what with never taking vacation time and all. Plus I can’t possibly be the best sister when there is you to compete with!”

Alex bumped shoulders with Kara lovingly and Kara rolled her eyes.

“I guess we'll just have to call it a tie then, even though I know I’m right!” 

“Agree to disagree.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading this! I'm not sure where I plan to take this story yet but I really wanted to write this chapter so here it is!


	3. Clumsy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara gets to work and finds she keeps walking into things because she forgot her glasses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! So I’m sorry for the delay in posting, but here is chapter 3. This chapter focuses on depth perception issues which aren’t a symptom that all people with fibromyalgia have but can be a symptom for many of them.

“Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry Frank! I didn’t mean to step on your foot!” Kara exclaimed as she watched Frank trip over her foot and stumble into the wall of the elevator. Kara quickly jumped to help him collect his scattered papers, and proceeded to bash heads with him by leaning over simultaneously.

“It’s okay! Please! Just stay over there and I’ll get it! I appreciate the help but don’t hurt yourself!” Frank said in hopes of avoiding a third injury in this seemingly long elevator ride. 

“Wh-What floor do you need? 38?” 

“Sure that works, I can give Michelle a visit and ensure her layout is developing according to timeline.” Frank adjusted the pile of papers he had collected and stepped to the side of the elevator to make room for more people joining them on their ride up.

“You sure have a solid step for such an innocent looking girl!” he joked.

“Well, I mean I did play basketball in high school and learned to keep my footing no matter who tried to knock me down, so I guess it carried over. I really am sorry for tripping you up!” 

“Don’t worry about it! Makes for a story for later i guess.” He chuckled to himself imagining his coworkers’ reactions when he explained that he face planted into a wall first thing this morning.

The elevator door dinged as it approached floor 38 and he waved kindly back at a sheepish Kara.  
_____________________________________________________________________

It had been two hours and Kara had managed to walk into her desk seven times, accidentally elbow Winn when he tried to help her decypher an email with horrendous grammar, and hit her hand on the edge of her chair while talking twice. It was beginning to get frustrating as Kara couldn’t figure out why she was so spatially unaware today. Luckily Cat had back to back meetings most of the day and had yet to comment, but she was bound to notice if Kara didn’t figure out a solution soon. She went to tuck her hair behind her right ear when it hit her!

Glasses!

She quickly opened her desk drawer to search for a backup pair when she realized she was out of luck. Her backup pair broke last week in an unfortunate incident involving fidgeting and high heels… She groaned at the realization that she was in for the long haul today without proper vision or at least until Alex could maybe bring her a pair from home. 

Kara shot Alex a quick S.O.S. text asking for glasses and hoping that she wasn’t out on a mission this morning so she could swing by CatCo quickly. Only to find that Alex wasn’t responding. She sighed and went to start checking Ms. Grant’s emails filing through what she could while adjusting for the slight difference in vision. After about a minute of adjustment she is reading fairly quickly again and not noticing too much of a problem. 

Her phone lit up with a text from Alex saying _I’ll be there around 11:30._

As Kara sends off her responding smiley emoji, Ms. Grant’s private elevator dings and the Queen of Media steps out onto the 40th floor. Kara jumps to bring her her extra hot latte and review her schedule for the rest of the morning. She bumps into her desk again but plays it off decently enough, barely making a face at the impact. Ms. Grant just raises her eyebrow slightly and walks into her office, grabbing her latte as she passed. 

As Ms. Grant sits at her desk she requests the mail that Kara was holding behind her tablet and peruses through the gala invites and the gallery openings trying to decide where best to make an appearance and where to just send Catco representatives in order to cover potential stories.

“Any updates on the new building across the city that has been so mysteriously built with little explanation?”

“Some of my sources have reported it belongs to Lena Luthor, the sister of Lex Luthor. They say she is making a new headquarters for Luthorcorp now that she is taking over the company in hopes of changing the image of the company after the crimes her family has committed.”

“Hmm. Well we need to get an interview with Ms. Luthor. See why she chose National City, what makes her tick, why she is any different than her relatives and such.” 

Kara nodded and made a note on her tablet, holding it slightly farther from herself than usual to check that she wasn’t hitting the wrong buttons while typing. 

“And Kiera, for God’s sake where are your glasses? Do you not take advantage of CatCo’s vision plan and have a spare pair?”

“I…Sorry Ms. Grant. I left mine at home and my spare pair is being repaired this week. I have my sister dropping them off on her lunch.” 

“There better not be any mistakes because you can’t read properly. Now get back to work and find me a way to get in touch with Ms. Luthor. Chop! Chop!”

“Yes Ms. Grant!” Kara squeaked.

Cat dismissed Kara with a wave and Kara rushed back to her desk where she sighed and sat back down to continue going through emails and figure out a contact for one Lena Luthor. Maybe Clark knew her PR contacts from Metropolis and could help her out.

____________________________________________________________________________

Alex managed to stop by around 11:30 am with Kara’s glasses as promised, along with a couple comments about responsibility and not being able to find her head if it weren’t attached. Kara endured the teasing because she was just grateful not to have to keep being super clumsy all day long. 

Work went so much smoother and faster with proper vision! 

She could read four times faster and stopped getting bruises and harming her coworkers every time she walked because she had proper depth perception again.

She made a note on her tablet to call her optometrist to ask about the status of her replacement pair to make sure this doesn’t happen again. 

It’s crazy to her how different her life is with glasses! 

She used to think glasses were just for people who couldn’t read things up close or who had super blurry vision, so she never thought to ask about other kinds of glasses. It wasn’t until she was 17 that her regular optometrist wasn’t in town so she saw his associate. She passed her vision test with flying colors, but when she got up to walk away the doctor noticed she tilted her head slightly before walking. 

At Eliza’s comment of how Kara had always tilted her head like that since she was 13, and joined the Danvers family, he immediately sat her back down to do further tests. It was then that he found that Kara had one eye that was slightly higher than the other, and therefore couldn’t see in a straight line properly and would adjust by tilting her head. He asked her if she ever had trouble reading when tired, and she had told him that the only way she studied late at night was by tracing under the words as she read because they would start doubling or she would jump from line to line while trying to read across the page. 

He pulled out a crazy looking contraption and had her try on some different lenses while looking at an eye chart. Though at first the difference wasn’t that large, Kara noticed that she could focus way better on the words and letters in front of her! It was crazy!

After being outfitted with a pair of prism glasses, Kara had better depth perception and walked into things way less because she could now tell that yes! this floor is flat, or this floor is actually slanted because it is on a hillside. She stopped walking into supporting poles while walking through buildings, and street lamps while going down the street! And she became a much more enthusiastic reader because she no longer had to trace everything she was reading with something to make it make sense!

__________________________________________________________________________

The rest of Kara’s day had been relatively uneventful, with only about an hour of catchup work being required to make up for not being able to read well all morning. Overall, it wasn’t a bad afternoon.

Kara started to pack up the things she would need for home tonight, placing her tablet into her bag and making a mental note to follow up with Clarke about Ms. Luthor and his prior contact with her. Once she had placed everything she could need into her bag she walked up to Cat’s office and knocked gently at the doorway.

“Is there anything else I can do for you Ms. Grant?”

“No Kiera, I’m just finishing up here. Carter is home tonight so I’m going to try and be home in time to make him some dinner and maybe play Settlers of Catan before his bedtime.”

“Okay, thank you Ms. Grant. Tell Carter I say hello and let me know if you think of anything you might need. I will have my phone on me and plan to finish up a couple of things tonight regarding contacting Ms. Luthor.”

“Try not to walk into the door on your way out.” Cat smirked slightly at her joke and Kara tried not to roll her eyes as she turned to leave.

“Good night Ms. Grant.” 

“Good night Keira.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for taking so long to post an update! I got kind of busy between work and finishing my last class of my bachelor's degree! But I have officially finished my B.A. in Global Health with a minor in Spanish! This also means I should have more time to write!   
> Let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions for future chapters!   
> As before, all work is my own and I don’t have a beta so sorry for any grammatical or spelling errors! Thanks for reading!


	4. Puppy Danvers Finds Her Bite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cat has Kara take on an underling in a high school shadowing program and she has to learn to be a boss.

It had been a normal week at CatCo when Cat decided to rope Kara in for a new project that CatCo had undertaken where high school students were given the opportunity to shadow people within the company. 

Approximately 25 students had been signed up for the program and Kara was in charge of ensuring each one shadowed 3 positions that week so that they could get a sense of the overall way that a company needs multiple positions to fully function as a cohesive unit. What Cat hadn’t told her in advance was that one of the people being shadowed would be Kara herself.

It was now day five of this adventure and while Kara had already had two teens shadow her, her third underling was proving tiring as he felt that being an assistant was below him in every way and took no interest in what Kara had to teach him.

It was about 3pm when Kara had had it to the roof with Daniel Chesterfield III (yes he went by “the third”. His family was some big investor or something so of course he got one of the positions in the program…). Kara had taught him how to use the scheduling system and put him in charge of watching the phones and looking through the tier 3 emails for her. The tier 2 and 1 were sent to a different folder for Kara to look at herself as nobody else was trusted with Cat’s messaging system to prevent any misfiling and lost information or the spread of important private information. 

The phone rang four or five times and Kara looked pointedly at Daniel who just rolled his eyes and eventually picked up the line. 

“Keira!” 

Kara jumped up and rushed to Ms. Grant’s office in an instant. 

“Yes, Ms. Grant?”

“Can you explain to me why i must hear that infernal ringing of the phone all day long when not only are you present at your desk but you have a desk jockey of your own?” Cat peered at her assistant over the top of her glasses.

“I’m so sorry Ms. Grant! I’ve told him to pick it up in under 3 rings over ten times now and he refuses to take the job seriously as he doesn’t believe that I’m a necessary job position for a major business person to know how to hold.”

Ms. Grant held up her hand to stop Kara before she could start rambling. 

“Woman up Keira! While we cannot send him home there are ways of dealing with boys like him. Show him who is boss before I have to!”

“Y-yes Ms. Grant. I’ll get right on it.”

Kara spun around on her heel and rushed back to her desk where she found Daniel snickering at how scared she looked like he took pleasure in seeing her suffer. 

That’s it! I can’t take it with this brat anymore! Kara thought. She took a deep breath and rounded Daniel’s desk.

“You think this is a game? This is my livelihood and I hold one of the most important jobs in this building! Do you know what happens when that phone rings for too long? Do you?”

Daniel stopped laughing when he realized that Kara was about to start yelling and was actually serious.

“I don’t know, they leave a message or try again later?”

“Wrong! This business is a media business! Everything here runs based on networking and connections. That call could be the President of the United States calling to give a scoop, or a hostage calling to try to make one last plea for help! That call could be the difference between getting important information first or becoming a second rate paper! That call could make the difference between a ten million dollar investment going to us or to another company all because YOU decided to let it ring like it wasn’t important enough to answer or not!”

At this point Daniel’s eyes started to go a little wide, even though he was still trying to play it off like he wasn’t affected by anything. 

“You came here to learn what a real business job is like. What roles are vital to the running of any corporation. All I’ve seen you do though is mock my job, mess up a bunch of emails, and potentially lose business deals. If that’s what you plan to do you may as well give up on business because nobody in their right mind would want to hire you. I’ve outlasted so many people in this position you can’t possibly comprehend it! The last ten were so overwhelmed that they didn’t even last a whole day! But go ahead, act like I don’t matter and nothing I do is necessary. This company would fall to pieces without the supporting roles like mine that keep the web of work tasks at bay so that the higher ups can do the major decision making without worrying about minor negotiations.”

Daniel started to say something but Kara cut him off before he could.

“You have one last chance to answer that phone in under 3 rings, and if you don’t I’m revoking your passwords immediately and you can explain to your father why you are no longer actively shadowing any positions in this program.”

She turned and sat at her desk with a huff and pretended to pull up an email only to see a dm on her screen from Ms. Grant herself that simply contained a thumbs up. She glanced at Ms. Grant and saw her raise her eyebrows in an impressed smirk.

At that, Kara turned back to her work and continued updating the spreadsheet she had been working on before having to lecture Daniel. 

The next time the phone rang, she barely heard the second ring before Daniel had scooped it up and took a real message down in the computer system. She nodded her head in approval and continued to do her job.

____________________________________________________________________________

By 5pm, Kara was allowed to let Daniel go home for the day as his parents were coming to pick him up from work in 15 minutes. She approached his desk and he looked at her expectantly. 

“Thank you for stepping up the rest of today Daniel. I hope you have learned a valuable lesson today.”

“I’m sorry for not taking things seriously earlier. I just figured assistants do nothing but grunt work so why bother, but I guess I didn’t see the whole picture.”

At this Kara softened a little. 

“This job may seem unimportant but without every little person below the higher ups, there would be nothing for the higher ups to run. I hope you don’t forget that.   
Now you can pack up your stuff, your parents will be waiting for you downstairs soon.”

“I won’t have to talk to my dad about today will I?”

“We will give you one more chance on Monday and then I’ll decide if he needs to be talked to. But just know that I fought tooth and nail for this position as it gets you so many connections that you wouldn’t ever dream of making elsewhere so you should feel lucky to get to work under Ms. Grant this directly.”

“Thank you Ms. Danvers.”

Daniel grabbed his things and rushed to the elevator, not looking back until the doors were closing.

Kara returned to her desk to finish up her report on how the shadowing program was going and to ensure that all of the things she put Daniel in charge of were done at least slightly correctly so that she didn’t miss anything (although she had been watching everything he did on a screen copying app Winn had put on her phone so she could view his work discreetly from across the room).   
___________________________________________________________________________

Kara had finished all of her work for the day so she packed up most of her stuff and approached her boss’s door to ask if she needed anything else for the evening.

“Come in Kiera.”

“Thank you Ms. Grant. I finished everything I had to work on today. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Come sit. I want to talk to you about David today.”

After freezing to process for a moment she startled and sat across from Cat on one of the couches. 

“What about Daniel?”

“I’m impressed that you got him to straighten up so quickly. I’ll admit I thought you might have no bark in you but it proves that Puppy Danvers has a bit of a bite to her as well.”

Kara blushed at the nickname and shook her head.

“I just can’t stand seeing someone so blatantly disrespect your company and potentially be messing up valid work.”

“He was disrespecting you too, you know. You have to stop letting people do that to you.”

“I... well I guess so Ms. Grant. I didn’t see that.”

“Honestly Kiera when are you going to realize that you deserve respect too? Just stand up for yourself every once in a while! I can’t do it for you all the time and neither can that sister of yours.”

“You’re right. Thank you Ms. Grant. I promise I’ll work on it.”

“Just channel a bit of whatever it was you did today every once in awhile and I’m sure you’ll be fine. Now it’s late. Go home and get some rest and enjoy your weekend. I expect you to be ready to take Donald down a few notches again on Monday. When we are done with him he won’t have the gall to disrespect any position again or I will personally see to it that he becomes a janitor.”

Kara laughed a little at that thought and at the satisfied smirk on Cat’s face.

“Thank you Ms. Grant. You should go home soon too. I know Carter is with his dad this weekend, but you deserve a break every once in a while yourself.”

“Someone’s getting a backbone today I see! We’ll see. I suppose I can go home a bit earlier tonight than I may have intended. Now off with you!”

Kara smiled as she got up, gathered her things and left with a small wave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for not posting anything in a long time, I couldn't figure out what I wanted to write and then when I did my schedule got crazy with traveling and graduating from University. I know this one doesn't have much to do with fibromyalgia, but sometimes life isn't all about having a disorder and you have to learn other life lessons like how to not let others walk all over you.


	5. Tremors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All that Kara wants to do is have a normal work day but her hands just keep making things happen against her will.

It was all good and fine until she had to actually do things. 

Kara woke up this morning and had less trouble than usual getting out of bed before the second alarm went off. She went to get dressed and while her buttons were slightly harder to fasten on her pink button-up than usual she managed to get dressed relatively easily.

When it came to doing her makeup and hair it wasn’t a major problem but she threw her bobby pins a few times instead of sticking them in her hair which got annoying after the third attempt. She shook off the frustration though as her hair looked good today.

It was when she went to make her breakfast that she realized today was going to be one of THOSE days.

She poured her cereal into a mug and went to add milk only for it to bounce off the cereal and pour all over the counter. Kara jumped to wipe up the milk before it got on the floor too, only to drop the sponge on the ground on the way over.

Considering she had already made a mess it came as little to no surprise to her that her attempt at blending collagen powder into her coffee led to the lid falling off the mini blender and coffee spraying all over the clean dishes and the kitchen window…

Definitely one of THOSE days. 

She snapped a photo of her blunder and sent it to Alex knowing she would get a kick out of the struggle of a Wednesday morning.  
__________________________________________________________________________

Work had been fine for the most part. She luckily managed to get Ms. Grant her latte in one piece, only spilling a tiny bit of the extra hot liquid on her hand in Noonan’s before asking for a stopper to keep her from spilling anything further in the elevator. 

It wasn’t until she was in a hurry to help with one of Ms. Grant’s requests and accidentally dropped her tablet on the ground breaking the screen a bit, that she started to really get frustrated. It’s not her fault that her dumb hands won’t stop randomly shaking or releasing things. She fake laughs it off and mutters a comment about having had too much caffeine that morning to cover for her clumsiness. If Ms. Grant notes otherwise then she didn’t comment.

Typing today was more of a struggle than usual as her left hand was at its normal speed but her right kept either stalling or hitting random buttons sporadically adding an h here and an l there in the middle of her emails that she was attempting to write. Thank goodness she had Autocorrect installed in her word processor and was a quick editor. Ms. Grant would kill her if she sent an email under CatCo’s official title with a ridiculous spelling error in the middle.

____________________________________________________________________________

Alex popped over for a quick lunch visit when she found out that she wasn’t needed in the lab for an hour or so and the two caught up as they hadn’t had time to see each other in a couple of days.

“Nice job on the coffee this morning you dork!” Alex laughed.

“Uuuugh Alex you don’t even know how many things like that have happened to me today! Earlier,” she adjusted the glasses on her face, “I was going to give Ms. Grant an update on her schedule and instead of typing out the word ‘interview’ like i MEANT to, my phone decided to change the word to,” she looked quickly to see nobody who mattered was nearby and nervously whispered “‘intercourse’...”

Alex started cracking up while her sister’s face turned as red as a tomato.

After getting her breathing under more control she wheezed out “And you accidentally hit send on that before reading it didn’t you!”

“I haven’t been able to make eye contact with Ms. Grant since! I quickly noticed the mistake and corrected it in the next message but how do you undo that!!!!”

Alex kept laughing but patted her sister comfortingly on the shoulder. “I’m sure she will pretend to get over it quickly. She is Cat Grant, Queen of all media afterall and wouldn’t want her employees to see her laughing too much in public lest she harm her ice cold image.”

Kara buried her face in her hands and groaned.

“Anyways, let’s pick a different topic. Any more of this and you will actually turn into a tomato. How are Winn and James doing?”

Kara finally lifted her head back up and looks at Alex and starts to relate the adventures that Winn and James had gotten up to over the weekend to her sister and puts her embarrassment behind her for awhile before her lunch break ended.

____________________________________________________________________________

The rest of her day went smoother than the morning as she had managed to adjust to her right hand’s tremors and stopped to read everything before hitting send all afternoon. As the day came to an end and she began to gather her things she heard Ms. Grant call her into her office.

“Kiera, I didn’t want to ask while everyone was here but are you feeling okay today? I can’t help but notice you were a little bit… off.” She glanced towards the tablet in Kara’s hands.

“I - Well everything is fine. Thank you Ms. Grant. Just...Sort of clumsier than usual today. I’m so so so sorry about the autocorrect incident earlier today!” She blushed furiously “I can’t believe that happened and I promise it will never happen again!”

“I must say I found it rather amusing… Although it’s best to not have it happen again especially if I’m not the only one you are messaging.” Cat smirked and Kara flushed redder if that was even possible.

“You know Kiera you can talk to me if you need anything to assist you with your job.”

“I- Thank you Ms. Grant.” Kara wondered how much the media mogul knew and how much she should relay in case it would actually lose her the job. “I promise it’s not a problem. I will let you know if that changes.”

“Mmm.” Cat considered with a knowing look in Kara’s direction as if she knew it was more than just a clumsy day. 

“Well, I’m just about done with things here for the day. Go off and have a night with your friends or sister or whoever it is you spend your time with when you are not here.”

“Thank you Ms. Grant. I will. Say hello to Carter for me!” Kara brightened up while mentioning the amazing child and Cat couldn’t help but smile slightly at the fact that Kara adored her son so much after only meeting him a handful of times.

“I will send him your regards. Kiera. See you in the morning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading this story so far! Sorry this chapter is so short but my hand is actually causing me to type wrong on one side so while it inspired me to write this today I didn't really feel like I could write much more than I have. My hands have been shaking and twitching randomly all week so I figured I should write about it.  
> I used dyac.com for inspiration on the typo as I enjoy reading through the autocorrect blunders people manage to make. Please feel free to leave a comment and suggestions are great too!


	6. Pushing it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's a crazy week at CatCo and Kara pushes herself to the limit to try and keep Cat's life in order but maybe she should take care of herself too...

It was finally Friday but CatCo was as crazy as it got. Kara arrives at work at 6 am instead of the usual 8 am just to prepare for the day ahead because Ms. Grant has back to back meetings and there is a new news break that has to be covered in addition to a Gala coming up this weekend. From past experience, she knows she has to get a jump on the work for the day if she ever intends to go home or sleep. 

She has just finished writing all of the reply emails in her inbox for the hour when she hears the telling ding of Ms. Grant’s private elevator and quickly rises to attention, bringing an extra hot latte to her boss. Cat barely even glances at Kara as she is already on the phone with the frontline news team head trying to get ahead of the story and ensure that Lois Lane doesn’t get the scoop out from under her on the latest crime ring being brought to justice. 

She ends the call with a sharp “Chop! Chop! There is no time to waste!” and turns to Kara expectantly. 

Kara takes her cue and starts rattling off Cat’s schedule for the day and then proceeds to tell her where they are at with the next spread and what has popped up overnight in the emails. Finally she mentions what is left to do to prepare Ms. Grant for the gala that she has to attend on Saturday night and ensures her that her ride, hair and makeup team, and wardrobe are all ready to go and that there will be no issues when it comes to her looking red carpet ready. 

Cat dismisses her with a nod and turns to get to work reading Kara’s key notes for her first meeting.

____________________________________________________________________________

Normally, Kara goes above and beyond for Ms. Grant, trying to ensure that there is no little thing that could cause her unnecessary stress or trouble such as running out of M&Ms or someone springing information on her before she already has heard about it. However she could never have foretold that Katherine Grant would choose today of all days to come and surprise Cat with a visit at work.

Luckily security got a glance of her entering the building and alerted Kara so that she was able to run interference long enough to DM Cat a warning in her meeting down in the boardroom with some big investors and to ensure that everything that is on her “Things to have prepared to distract Cat’s mother” list was put out to limit the number of times Cat had to hear about keeping her mother waiting.

There goes her first break of the day, seeing as she was behind on what she wanted to do to begin with and this could throw her schedule off track for up to an hour or more!

When Katherine entered the 42nd floor of the building using Cat’s private elevator no less (Kara was certain it was a power play to prove that she still only saw Cat as a child), Kara sprang up from her chair and led Katherine to the balcony where she had already poured a chilled glass of champagne with a splash of orange juice in it and laid out a few magazines she kept based on Cat’s mother’s interests (up to date of course and none of them being CatCo). Cat could never know that she subscribed to the competition, but if it kept her mother from interrupting a board meeting Kara was willing to take the risk.

The speed at which she had set up all of this from her emergency drawer could have made an outsider question if she had superspeed or something because she had only had 5 minutes to prepare and everything looked flawless. 

Katherine was pompous and pretentious as usual, but Kara asked her briefly about her latest book deal and what brought her to National City that day, telling her Cat would be there in just 10 minutes and to ask if she needed anything before managing to escape back to her desk and push Cat’s next meeting to a later time. That meant she had to reschedule another meeting, but in the long run Cat would probably appreciate it.

This impromptu meeting could only mean bad news regarding Cat’s mood as well so she set up an emergency appointment for tomorrow morning with Cat’s therapist to ensure she was picture perfect and didn’t pull anything stupid at the Gala. 

____________________________________________________________________________

Ten minutes and three phone calls later, Kara’s body was starting to show that it was not amused with her pushing herself so much not only today but all week. She could feel her right arm starting to vibrate and her right leg kept involuntarily twitching. It was irritating as heck but she pushed through it because now was not the time for her body to give in.

Cat’s elevator dinged again and she was up and ready to alert Cat to the reasons she had drawn out of Katherine for her visit and to warn her that her mother was on the balcony as she spoke. 

“Thank you Kiera, push my next meeting to later as I can’t push it off to another day and tell Snapper that I will have to go over his issues on another day. I have a feeling this won’t be a short encounter if it’s about what I think it is.”

“Already done Ms. Grant. I also took the liberty of scheduling an appointment tomorrow morning at nine with your therapist.”

Cat looked to Kara with a mildly impressed smirk, raising one eyebrow before taking a deep breath and heading into her office and toward her balcony.

___________________________________________________________________________

The problem with having multiple deadlines overlapping and a monster of a mother coming to visit Ms. Grant was that that left Kara in charge of damage control and making small decisions that normally would be fielded through her boss in a manner that she thinks her boss would approve of but doesn’t know for certain. 

Luckily this crime ring story had already been handled enough that Kara had a general feel for the direction in which Ms. Grant wanted to take the story and could go from there. After sending back detailed directions on how to handle a couple of questionable situations she was having trouble typing so she decided to go to the copy room and start making pamphlets for the next two meetings including the minutes from the past meeting, a copy of each article they were addressing, and a couple of source materials that could prove useful. 

Upon entering the copying room she realized that the copier’s screen had gone dark and wasn’t responding to anything. 

“No! No! No! The copier has to work! How am I supposed to get this done without a copier!?!” Kara took a deep breath and got to work figuring out the problem. 

“Ok, think. There is no power to the screen…Lets try the power button…”

Nothing happened when the button was pressed once or when she held down on the power button for 10 seconds in hopes of resetting the computer portion of the copier. She then pulled the copier away from the wall to find that somehow, in some way, someone had managed to cut the power cord in half! 

“Who does that??? How??? I don’t have time to find another copier that does this kind of print in high gloss before the meetings start! And I know the IT guys will just tell me to wait until the next available guy can come in! Last time that was over 3 hours!”

Her first thought was to get Winn to fix it, but he was out of work today with the flu so she instead texted him asking if he kept a pair of wire strippers and some electrical tape at his desk by chance. To her luck and slight surprise he told her he had some stashed in the right hand drawer on the bottom and she leapt up to grab the supplies and return to the copy room. 

“Ms. Grant doesn’t even know how lucky she is that I used to help Alex with all of her crazy science experiments and robotics projects as a teenager…” she muttered as she got to work stripping away the plastic covering the ends of the broken cord and twisted together the exposed wires before taping the wire back together with the electrical tape to prevent any sparking from lighting the carpet on fire.

“Please work! Please work! Please work!” she chanted as she tried the power button again and she let out an ecstatic yelp when the screen lit up with the company name on it!  
“Okay, now I’m only like 2 hours behind and still might get to sleep for a bit tonight if I am lucky! I’ll just call the copier in later.”

____________________________________________________________________________

Kara arrived at her desk with all of her copies just before Cat kicked her mother out of her office while yelling something about trying not to scare too many children on her way out. 

She hesitantly approached Ms. Grant and offered her a copy of one of the packets she had put together along with her color coded notes as a guide and turned to grab a tumbler of M&Ms, a small bottle of water and a Lexapro.

“Thank you Kiera, I’m sorry you had to deal with that witch of a woman before I got here.”

“No worries, Ms. Grant. Glad that I could help.”

Her arm was still shaking and she almost dropped the water while handing it to her boss, but saved it only to have her leg twitch again. 

“Why do you keep fidgeting?” Cat snapped.

“I- Sorry, I thought it would have stopped by now... I mean, it’s nothing. Just minor motion control problems. I’ll try to make it stop.” Kara looked down and tried to act like she wasn’t in pain and unable to make her leg stop twitching for the past two hours.

“Go take a lunch break!” Cat cut Kara off before she could argue “I don’t want any evidence of you working for the next thirty minutes! Chop Chop!”

“Yes Ms. Grant. Thank you.” Kara left the rest of the packets on Ms. Grant’s desk and grabbed her cell phone and wallet before heading down to Noonan’s to grab something to eat.

____________________________________________________________________________

It wasn’t until her food arrived that Kara realized she hadn’t stopped to eat, rest, or use the restroom in over six hours. She was starving! 

She dug into her food quickly and tried to hold back a moan of pleasure as the food hit her tongue. Only one person looked at her funny so she took it as a minor success.

She tried to clear her mind of work for a few minutes and focus on what her body needed so that she could prioritize her much needed break. Her leg was still kicking irritatingly about every 20 seconds and her right arm was still kind of shaking. Now her fingers were joining in on the twitching party too, with the exception of her pointer finger and thumb, so that was inconvenient. Maybe she should try drinking some water and stretching out a bit.

Once she finished devouring her lunch she headed to the restroom to relieve the pressure that had been building up in her bladder over the past hours and managed to touch up her hair makeup in an attempt to look a little less run down.

With about five minutes left of her break she went back up to the 42nd floor and briefly stopped by the secret file room that she hid a foam roller in to do some quick physical therapy exercises to lengthen and straighten her spine in hopes of helping prevent the spread of her twitching to her other side. 

By the time that she returned to her desk her leg had stopped being a bother and she just had a dull pain in her neck which was manageable enough.

“Alex is gonna kill me if she finds out I let it get that bad today.”

____________________________________________________________________________

Luckily the rest of her day went according to plan, with Cat being in meetings the rest of the afternoon, her appointments for the next few days confirmed, and whatnot. By the time that 8 pm rolled around, Kara had managed to put the final touches on most of her work and wrap everything up besides a few things she could take care of from home. 

Ms. Grant was still plugging away at making the final touches to the layout when she knocked at the doorway to see if she was needed for anything further.

“No Kiera, you’ve worked hard enough today. Go get some rest so that you can be ready tomorrow when and if all hell breaks loose.”

“Thank you Ms. Grant. I hope you finish soon enough that you can get some sleep yourself.” 

With that, she gathered her things and headed home to a much deserved hot shower and a hot burger with extra toppings.

Her limbs felt like they were made of lead, but at least they had decided to stop twitching completely a couple of hours ago.

When she hit the pillow on her bed she immediately passed out, thankful that she had thought to plug in her cell phone and set an alarm when she got in the door because there was no way she was moving from that spot again until she absolutely had to tomorrow morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't really expect to update this story so soon but I had a really long day at work and after my shift I couldn't get this chapter out of my head so here it is! Don't expect all chapters to be this long, I just got a writing bug so ended up typing away without realizing how much had been written!   
> All comments are appreciated! Let me know if you have ideas!


	7. Patience Runs Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara gets sick of hearing a man baby whine about his job and accidentally outs her fibromyalgia to get him to just shut up.

“You don’t even know how hard it is to come to work with a runny nose! I mean every time I answer the phone i have to make sure I sound normal. What if I sound congested you know?”

Kara tries to contain her eye roll as Mike the new intern continues on about the side effects of his Accutane like dry eyes and a small nasal drip. Take a freaking Benadryl and just shut up already! Is all that she can think but she is supposed to be building up her team of interns, not just belittling them. Besides, it’s the same conversation she had to listen to last week with Mike.

“Okay Mike, back to the question at hand. Why are there still two bins of shredded paper at your desk right now instead of locked away safely in the bin down the hall to be picked up?”

“Can’t we just get like a maintenance or cleaning person to empty my bins? They get heavy and the lock up area is all the way down the hall.”

Mike always seems to have a line like this and no matter how much patience Kara has sometimes it doesn’t feel like enough!

“Ok Mike, we have been over this before. You have to empty the shredding stuff into the proper area because you are one of the only ones with proper clearance to carry that paperwork from the legal department to the actual shredding disposal locker! We can’t let maintenance do it because they don’t have that clearance and we don’t want the other media outlets to gain access to any of our confidential information!”

“But like why do I have to do it?”

“Because it’s your JOB!”

Mike just looks at her like she seems like she is making this all up. Kara takes a deep breath and tries a new angle.

“Like I said last week, if you can’t do your job then you need to go somewhere else. If you have problems with your job physically talk to HR and get something sorted out.”

“I mean It’s not my job I have a problem with it’s just last year I pulled something in my back so I don’t know if lifting all that paper is good for me.”

“A little stack of paper won’t kill you Mike. If you need to you can get a cart with wheels on it and push it all down the hall on that but honestly you should be fine. Didn’t you just say you were lifting at the gym last night anyways?”

“I mean yeah but what if it’s like that one little thing that pushes me over the limit?”

“Mike, I don’t usually go around playing this card but if I can do it you sure as heck can do it!”

“Yeah right! You are Kara Danvers, you get everything done for Cat Grant and manage to look good while doing it!”

“It’s not all fun and games with my job you know! Sometimes I have bad health days too. I just don’t whine about it and suck it up until I get home and can let it out without it affecting my work. So you pulled a muscle last year! Who cares?!? Most people don’t know this, and I’d prefer if it stayed that way, but last week I was in the ER after my shift because I was in so much nerve pain that when I went to hug my sister my whole body started to shake and wouldn’t stop twitching for six hours! SIX FREAKING HOURS! And did you hear me complain? NO! Did I show up the next day for work and get my job done? YES! So please just cut the crap and do your job before I let Ms. Grant deal with you!”

Mike looked taken aback a bit. He had never seen Kara mad before.

“I had no idea you had that problem. This job can’t be good for you. Maybe you should find an easier one. Or maybe they could give you medication for that whole nerve thingy.”

Kara huffed out another sigh at that.

“You mean like the medication I’ve been on for three years and have to take every day on time or else I will develop seizures?”

“Sure. But like not the seizure part.”

At that Kara rolled her eyes like Alex usually would.

“Thanks, I’ll make sure to consider that Mike!”

With that Kara had had enough with Mike and walked away to go get her actual job done instead of wasting it convincing a snivelling man baby to try to do what he is paid to do for once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, so this chapter is a little on the angrier side I guess but that's all part of having an invisible illness. It isn't always pretty and even the most patient people can only take so much. This is based off of some things one of my coworkers who knew I had a nerve disorder said to me recently.  
> As always feel free to leave a comment or find me on tumblr!  
> sabooian.tumblr.com


	8. Just Trying to Relax

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara decides to have a couple drinks instead of sticking to her soda.

Kara was in a bar and for once instead of just sipping on a soda while her friends and sister drank she joined them and got a vodka soda with lime.

She wasn’t supposed to drink on her medications so she normally was well behaved and had the bartender make her something that looked like it could have alcohol in it to make any outsiders assume she was actually drinking instead of having to deal with people asking why she didn’t drink.

Everyone always seemed to think it was their problem that she was sober when she went out with her friends and would only leave her alone if she told them she had been paralyzed and didn’t feel particularly inclined to lose the use of her limbs again. That however, not only had the effect of making the person stop insisting she drink, but scared people off and put a bit of a damper on the conversation.

But tonight was different. Tonight, she was drinking. Tonight, she was going to forget all the stress from the past week at work and just relax with her friends.

Lena leaned into her side laughing at something Winn had said and Kara was drawn back into the conversation playing out.

“You mean to tell me you hacked into the fire department’s computer system at the age of 9 just to get a girl’s phone number to see how to beat a level of a video game instead of asking her out???”

“I mean I was nine! All i cared about was the game! I never thought dating her was an option!”

“But you did have a crush on her didn’t you!” Alex jabbed.

Winn blushed at that “Well, I mean yeah probably! But you haven’t played Winnie the Pooh’s Home Run Baseball Derby if you don’t understand how imperative it was that I beat Christopher Robin! And this girl HAD!”

Everyone had to laugh at that.

“Only you would be obsessed with a Winnie the Pooh video game Bro” James shook his head.

“Look, it’s not important that it was Winnie the Pooh. What was important is that only a very select few had the hand eye coordination required to beat the final level! Even adults couldn’t do it!” He dug the phone out of his pocket to search for a youtube video. “Watch this and you will see what I mean!”

Kara took a large sip of her drink while everyone was watching the video, but apparently not everyone had been looking away.

“Kara, are you okay? I noticed you had the bartender pour you a double today.” Lena gently commented. Softly enough that the others wouldn’t turn and join in.

Slightly caught off guard, Kara adjusted her glasses and took a breath before replying “Nothing really. Just work stuff, you know…” Lena raised an eyebrow at that as if she didn’t fully believe that Kara was telling her everything.

“I don’t know,” Kara sighed. “I’ve just been going through some processing lately and it all feels like it is piling out of control and I work hard all the time only to get more work assigned and never have my boss get my name right, even though I swear she knows it is Kara not Kiera, and her mother came in unexpectedly this week and felt the need to drag Cat’s personal life into the office and I’ve been on cleanup duty for that and I don’t know how to get my arms to stop shocking me so I might as well get drunk and have them shock me while I am relaxed!” Kara blurted out. Her eyes widened when she realized how much she had confessed in one rather long breath of a sentence.

“Maybe you should slow down on the alcohol and just try and hang out like we normally do.” 

“Yeah, I mean probably, but I’m tired of always following the rules.” She formed air quotes as she talked “‘No caffeine!’ ‘Exercise all the time!’ ‘But don’t exercise too much!’ ‘Don’t have stress!’ ‘But also pay your medical bills that are exorbitantly high!’ ‘Don’t drink like everyone else your age does because it’s bad for you!’ ‘Just try to live your life!’ ‘Here are a billion little jobs to do!’ ‘Why aren’t you sleeping enough?’ Sometimes it makes me want to scream! So instead I have a drink or two as a form of rebellion. It’s dumb, I know, but it’s one of the few things left that I feel like I can control without fully spiraling.”

“I see what you mean,” Lena conceded. “But perhaps don’t get full on drunk tonight and just drink enough to get buzzed so that you don’t pay in the morning?”

“That sounds reasonable enough. You’re smart, I should probably listen to you.”

“HA! It doesn’t take a PHD to learn that lesson. I’m just suggesting it because I used to do the same back in boarding school but I wouldn’t stop early enough and I paid big time a couple of times. Wouldn’t want to see you facing Cat Grant with a hangover now would we?”

“Who’s hungover?” Alex asked, suddenly interested.

“Nobody! I mean not right now at least!” Kara blurted.

“Kara, something you want to talk about?”

“Nope! Just fine! Lena was just talking about a time back in boarding school.” 

Alex shrugged, “Okay then, carry on.”

____________________________________________________________________________

It was a few hours later and Kara had had about 3 drinks. Reasonably spaced out, but she was definitely not sober anymore. After all, the medication she took was supposed to double the effects of alcohol on her system so she was probably drunker than not.

“I’m just gonna grab some water at the bar. Anyone else want some?”

“No thanks Kara!” most of them replied.

“Mind if I join?” Lena asked.

“Sure!” Smiling, Kara headed over to the bar slightly wobblier than usual but nobody seemed to notice because she wasn’t that good at walking straight to begin with. Things always seemed to blur together when she had alcohol and it made it seem like a long exposure picture in video form. 

She got the bartender’s attention, asked for two waters and then turned to Lena.

“Thanks for checking up on me earlier. It means a lot that you notice when I might not be acting like my usual self.”

“Of course! It’s what I’m told friends do for one another. Or I assume it’s what a decent person would do if they saw someone the cared about seemed upset or stressed.”

“Still, I like that you suggested I slow down without telling me I can’t do something like everyone else seems to. They think because I am disabled I suddenly might not know what’s good or bad for me but you respect that I know my body enough to make my own decisions, so thank you.”

“Any time. I’m not one to enjoy being told how to live my life either so I understand that sentiment.”

At this Kara couldn’t help but to hug her friend until she noticed the bartender had returned with their waters.

“Thank you!” she waved as the bartender turned to help the next customer.

“Let’s go join the others and find out what Alex has been hiding from us this past week. I swear she is up to something.” 

Kara grabbed onto Lena’s hand and pulled her towards the table to join the others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while, but I felt like writing again! I finally added Lena as requested and did the bar scene I have been thinking of.   
> Yes the video game Winn mentioned was a real game and it became a meme because of the game's difficulty.  
> Please leave comments below and tell me what you thought! Suggestions for further chapters are also welcome!  
> My tumblr is sabooian.tumblr.com if you want to follow or chat on there too!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for giving this a chance! I have fibromyalgia and I really connect to Kara Danvers and how she is always trying her best to get everything done without concerning others when she is in pain or dealing with big things outside of work so I thought I’d give this a try.  
> Any and all mistakes are my own as I don’t have a beta.  
> The song that Kara had stuck in her head is “No Roots” by Alice Merton.  
> Let me know what you think and if you want me to continue this. I have a few ideas for where I could take this so I might make this a multi-chapter if there is interest.  
> Message me on tumblr if you have any requests or just want to say hi! My UN is Sabooian :)


End file.
